An American-born child separated from her parents, who were deported back to their country of origin; a student who can’t continue his college education due to his lack of legal status; an entire family broken across borders while trying to escape poverty and war, all in hopes of forging a better future in the United States — these are the struggles “Dreamers” face all throughout the country.

But when Jimmy López Bellido and Nilo Cruz were commissioned by Cal Performances to develop a production around the Dreamers, they didn’t want to just repeat faceless stories. They wanted to humanize their struggles and find that unique connection that speaks to the Bay Area.

So they turned to López’s alma mater, UC Berkeley.

“Some have siblings who are U.S. citizens, some of them are fleeing war, some are fleeing extreme poverty, some came as babies and know no other reality or language, some came as teenagers and have a formed identity before coming to this country,” López recalls of listening to these array of migration tales. “Even if they achieve some degree of legality or citizenship, the fact that their parents have no path (towards citizenship) is already heartbreaking.”

This is the crux of “Dreamers,” an oratorio crafted by López, a noted Peruvian American composer who earned his doctorate in music at Cal in 2012, and Cruz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Cuban playwright who wrote the libretto for the piece. The program makes its world premiere Sunday, March 17, at Zellerbach Hall, before an encore performance at Stanford University’s Bing Concert Hall the following night.

Composer Jimmy López Bellido interviewed seven Dreamers who attend UC Berkeley to tell their stories in “Dreamers.” Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle“Dreamers,” composed by Jimmy López with a libretto by Nilo Cruz (pictured), is scheduled to be debuted in the Bay Area. Photo: Todd Rosenberg

As part of their year-long research for the project, López and Cruz interviewed seven Dreamers who attend UC Berkeley, all currently protected under an executive order signed June 15, 2012, by then-President Barack Obama, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The university has an entire department — the Undocumented Student Program, which is part of the Centers for Educational Equity and Excellence — devoted to the roughly 500 Dreamers currently enrolled. The program assists students with academic support, provides free legal aid by East Bay Community Law Center, and offers other resources to help obtain financial aid and scholarships.

The Obama-era program has been under scrutiny since Sept. 5, 2017, when then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, under the direction of President Trump, decided to send the more than 800,000 Dreamers holding a work permit into immigration limbo. The program remains in place as litigation continues.

In López’s exploration of Berkeley, he also discovered it was the original sanctuary city of the United States, part of a resolution enacted on Nov. 8, 1971, that sought to protect U.S. Navy sailors resisting the Vietnam War. That history, and the Dreamers supported at Cal, helped steer the musical project.

“We wanted to work on a piece that is relevant to our day, but also relevant directly to the city of Berkeley,” he says.

Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen Photo: Clive Barda

“Dreamers” marks the return of London‘s Philharmonia Orchestra and its principal conductor and artistic adviser Esa-Pekka Salonen, who will succeed Michael Tilson Thomas at the San Francisco Symphony after the 2019-20 season. Grammy Award-winning Puerto Rico-born soprano Ana María Martínez also joins the bill as the show’s soloist, accompanying a voice choir comprising Bay Area contemporary vocal ensemble Volti and the UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus.

“As the daughter of an immigrant parent, I was deeply moved when first approached to be part of the world premiere of ‘Dreamers,’ ” Martínez says. “In essence, we can all relate in one way or another to the existential journey of the Dreamer. We all should have as our human right, a path on which we are able to breathe, move, develop and reach our highest potential without hindering anyone else from reaching theirs. That is freedom.”

Working on “Dreamers,” Martínez adds, was “highly demanding from both a musical and technical standpoint,” but she feels that the complex nature enhances the piece.

Ana María Martínez. Photo: Tom Specht, Courtesy photo

“It should be challenging to get this piece in my body, in my muscle memory as a parallel to the complexities surrounding every individual who is directly and indirectly affected by the harsh realities that Dreamers must face,” she says. “There is nothing simple or easy reflected here, as that is not the reality of a Dreamer.”

Since the fate of the DACA program remains uncertain, the students López and Cruz spoke to are reluctant to share their stories publicly, outside from what they shared with the composers. As an immigrant himself, López says he relates to many of their tales. He moved to Miami from Peru for a year when he was 11 years old and recalls the challenge of coming to America as “a foreigner” even for that brief period. He returned to Peru after one year in the U.S., and it was back in his home country that he started his development in music. He later moved to Finland, at age 21, to study at the Sibelius Academy.

“It was a whole different immigrant experience all over again. It was a different language, different mentality,” he recalls of his time in Helsinki. “I looked very different, and I was looked as strange, and exotic.”

López sees this classical setting as a way of humanizing the polarizing topic of immigration. He believes the powerful combination of a full chorus and Martínez’s vocals, along with an orchestra, will help provide a connection between the stories of immigrants and non-immigrants that no other medium can.

“My task as a classical composer is to create an emotional frame. The sound of the orchestra is a tool that really has no comparison,” he says. “Not everybody will feel comfortable with this, but I think it’s important to at least create awareness.”